Self-care is important. You’ve heard it a thousand time: “you can’t pour from an empty cup”. And boy do you feel it when that cup is empty. When you get there, it’s not even an option anymore, your body says ‘no’ for you. But somehow, even if we know and understand all this, we all have an easier taking care of others, even our pets, before doing something for ourselves. We make sure they get their vitamins and their sleep, but we don’t get ours.
Why are we like this? Is it passed on from generation to generation? Do we do it to please others so we are accepted and loved? Do we consciously self-sabotage by not taking good care of ourselves? I don’t know, maybe there’s more than one answer.
I recently heard a comment about ‘self-respect’ when seeing someone load a shopping cart full of frozen pizzas, chips and pop into their car. This resonated with me at we often see a clean as diet as a form of deprivation and torture, but don’t see a diet of processed foods as a form of disrespect towards ourselves. Taking care of ourselves through our diet and lifestyle is a form of deep self-respect that leads to a very positive outcome, it’s not a form of torture, yet we have a hard time seeing it this way. Of course, there are many reasons someone may be buying pizza, chips and pop, but we are making some assumptions here for the sake of giving an example.
This brings me to the delicate topic of self-care. This practice of self-respect and self-love is essential to health, happiness and success. When I imagine self-care, my mind automatically goes to a day at the spa, which I do not have time to do regularly. I think I’ve done this a total of 3 times in my life, and going to the spa 3 times in 35 years is not a sustainable form of self-care. So self-care has to mean something more than that.
Self-care is a highly individual act, as the name says it: taking care of the self. It can mean something totally different for different people, and for each person, it can mean something different from day to day. On one day it can mean exercising and eating well, while on another day it can mean sitting down and getting things done. The trap we all fall into is thinking that self-care an entire list of things we need to be doing in order to be healthy. Going eating an impeccable diet, meditating for hours, journaling, spending time outside, spending time with friends and family, exercising for an hour every day, and the list goes on. I’m exhausted just thinking of doing all this on top of working full time and everything else. This form of self-care, is just as unsustainable as going to the spa, once every 10 years, unless it’s the only thing you are focusing on, which would be wonderful, but not the case for most of us.
I like to think of self-care as the things that feed the Soul, taking time to do the things that need to get done, while balancing it out with the things that either restore or boost our energy and light us up. Having a few key things that we do regularly (but not necessarily daily) makes self-care attainable and has a significant impact on our overall wellness. If we have these things in place, everything seems to be a bit easier. The keys are simplicity and consistency. Try things out, one at a time, until you find what works for you, to keep you feeling grounded and balanced. That is the key to real self-care.
Need some inspiration and motivation for self-care? Try My Soul Challenge, a fun and easy game that promotes self-care and mindfulness through weekly challenges!